


Monster & Pizza

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Aftermath of violence descriptions, Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Secrets, bad gabe jokes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-13 04:28:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5694751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel has a plan: get through college classes, look for a job to make a living wage, and get out. He's breaking down under a life of toxic secrets, and hope seems to be nowhere in sight. What he doesn't expect is his attractive classmate Dean to worm his way into Cas's private matters, much less offer something Cas doesn't dare believe in - a way to leave this life behind. - DISCONTINUED</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Monster Coffee

It wasn’t until the third class in that Castiel realized he probably should have stuck with “homeless high school graduate” instead of going for a six AM college course on psychology. In a few days, he wasn’t going to be able to psychoanalyze a rock ̶ let alone other people ̶ if every weekday morning started this early. Wasn’t this time for high schoolers? Not college students.

Of course, his classmates seemed to be doing just fine on this lovely, gray, frost bite inducing fall morning.

As Cas slumped further down in his back row lecture seat and bit back yet another yawn, he tried blowing on his fingers to distract himself, wishing he’d had the foresight to buy a pair of gloves.

Why had he even taken this class? True, he liked trying to understand human emotions, but for God’s sake, he was supposed to be taking useful classes like Accounting and Business and things. He hadn’t come here to pay tuition he couldn’t afford to enjoy himself, he’d come here to better his job chances.

And to be honest, he wasn’t sure _interesting_ was going to make the bed at five every morning.

As the dull chatter continued around him, Cas found himself drooping toward the table. Just as his eyes fluttered shut, the loud _WHAP_ of a backpack being dropped onto the tabletop next to his face jolted him back into unwelcome reality. He jerked backward as his chair contemplated tipping but chose to settle back down onto four legs as its user dropped back into it, veins humming with the sudden shot of adrenaline.

“Oh my god.”

The words weren’t so much an actual sentence as a low groan as the boy who’d nearly injured Cas flopped across the table.

Cas huffed out a relieved, annoyed, and still half asleep exhale, blinking rapidly to clear his head.

“What sane person thinks college students can work at six in the morning?” the boy moaned, his words slightly slurred.

Cas couldn’t bring his brain to decide whether or not he was being spoken to, and he certainly couldn’t figure out if he actually wanted to answer the rude boy’s question in the first place, so he decided the half-logical answer would be to stay silent.

“I can’t even think…” The boy let his arms flop to the table and weakly pushed himself upward, reaching for the coffee he’d let slop all over the table when he’d dro pped his backpack.

Pulling it across the thankfully sealed but now covered-in-black-coffee tabletop, the boy tilted it back. Halfway through his chug, he set it down. His movements no longer as slow as a slug through molasses, he began unzipping his backpack.

The second slam was of metal on the wood. A black aluminum can now loomed next to the coffee cup.

Cas and the boy both stared at it. A Monster Energy Drink.

The boy cracked it open and turned it upside down as Cas watched the trembling hand pour the amber liquid into the cup’s swirling dark contents.

The soft clatter of the empty can on the table brought a silence over both of them as the boy picked up the coffee cup.

“I’m going to die,” he whispered, and downed the whole thing.

Cas could feel himself staring, but the rapid bobbing of the boy’s Adam’s apple alarmed him.

The quiet click of the cardboard cup being set down was sobering. Cas couldn’t tear his eyes away as the boy stared contemplatively at the empty caffeine containers.

“Well, I feel awake now,” he announced after a few moments, glancing over at the still staring Cas.

He grinned, the corner of his mouth coming up in a toothy smirk at Cas’s slack jaw, and held out a hand. “Dean Winchester. How’s your morning going?”

Cas fought to peel the still startled expression off his face in place of a more neutral one. “I’m Castiel Angel ̶ Cas,” he mumbled, shaking the offered hand.

Dean gave him a little one-finger salute. “I see the resemblance. Angels have under eye bags and scruff, huh?”

Cas sputtered. “I’m not ̶ I don’t…” _You do too!_

Dean leaned forward, resting on his arm. “Nah, I’m just kidding. But you really have some damn blue eyes.”

The heat Cas could feel creeping up his face was only exacerbated by his sudden awareness of just how close Dean was sitting to him now, his own bright green eyes searching Cas’s “damn blue” ones.

Dean was dressed in a well-loved but expensive looking leather jacket, which hung open to a gray T-shirt and open plaid button up and some sort of odd looking charm hanging from his neck underneath a giant scarf. Cas tried to find fault in anything about the boy, like the mess his dark blond hair was in, or the fact that his broad jaw appeared to have remained unshaven over more than the couple days Cas had gone, or the crooked smirk that had started to creep across his face as he seemed to notice the red building up in Cas’s cheeks.

But if Cas was honest, the imperfections only added to the charm Dean Winchester exuded.

“So, Cas, would you keep on the lookout for signs of impending death on my end of the table?” Dean asked, his smirk still firmly in place as he steadily stared, his hand cupping his cheek. “My geek little brother worries for my health, given that I’ll be living some hours away from his watchful eye. He printed out a whole three pages of fatal caffeine overdoses the week before I came here.”

Cas swallowed and nodded and turned to the front as the professor finally appeared and cleared her throat, quieting the classroom.

The lecture was long ̶ almost word for word the first section of the textbook’s chapter two, which Cas had nervously almost memorized in his perusal of the book in the few weeks before the quarter he’d gotten it ̶ and did not induce wakefulness.

Dean, however, did. His fingers on the tabletop began drumming some 30 minutes in, a constant rhythm that slowly began to alternate into something more irregular as Cas detected a humming and soft whispered lyrics to a song ̶ Eye of the Tiger, it seemed ̶ while his leg underneath the table kept up the jitters of no real time that his fingers had previously been maintaining. Before long, the hypnotizing taps had Cas transfixed on the boy next to him.

Somewhere along the line, Cas’s eyes had drifted from the tapping, slightly grimy nails on the table up to Dean’s face, lulled into a content stupor by the drone of the bespectacled woman writing on the whiteboard.

He was contemplating the dusting of freckles across Dean’s nose when those eyes snapped to his.

A sudden thunder of his heartbeat yanked his gaze away as he tried to make his change of attention natural, but changing the arm he leaned on and attempted to fix his eyes to the professor did nothing to erase the sensation the pair of eyes staring at him seemed to be burning into the side of his skull. He glanced over, his hand covering as much of his face as it could.

The little smile he wore could have been smug, or flirty, but instead Dean Winchester fucked Castiel over with a soft smile, with quiet eyes, not even knowing, or teasing, but instead with some sort of surprise, as if he hadn’t expected his flirting to have any effect.

Cas swallowed and looked away after a few moments of deer-in-the-headlights staring, expecting that to be the end of it.

An electric jolt zapped through Cas, however, as Dean’s fingertips skimmed over the back of his hand and he leaned closer.

“Hey, Angel, by the way. I hope you’re free later, because I need your report of my aliveness typed up so I can reassure Sammy that I have someone else taking care of me when he’s not here.” The wink as the fingers finally drew out of contact fully imparted the subtext and Cas inhaled as Dean casually slid back to his spot.

Cas slowly pulled his cold, ungloved hands back into his lap and tugged his tan sweater sleeves over his tingling fingers. It was just flirting. Just teasing. His heart could calm down. He couldn’t afford to lose focus.

The lecture ended with a movie that was only slightly more interesting than the professor herself.

Half the classroom was out of their seats the moment the credits began, signaling the end of class, and Cas was no exception, Dean’s fingers on his hand slipping from his mind as more urgent thoughts invaded.

He had a job to get to…which one was it? At the bakery? He’d already been late twice last week and the boss hadn’t been happy. He couldn’t be late again, he’d been fired from too many jobs for less.

And he desperately needed any money he could bring in, from every job he could get.

 

Dean looked up from his backpack to see Cas rush for the door. In the split second before the boy was gone, he felt a sudden pang of something being lost, the opportunity to actually talk to him, to maybe even ask if he was free on the weekend, gone.

So Dean was left standing with an ever-so-slightly outstretched hand toward the door where Castiel Angel had disappeared, swallowing down a lump of curious disappointment.

There were plenty of other fish in the sea. Psh, he could honestly do much better than baby-faced, blue-eyed…

Blue eyed hot guys.

Straight, maybe? Dean had seen cases like that before, just too quiet and embarrassed to rebuff his advances. They’d blushed, too, and had been adorable up until they’d made him blush just as fiercely when they finally stammered out they weren’t interested in types like him.

As in, men, period.

Dean turned to the empty Monster can he held.

_Why would he rush out without even saying anything if he was interested? He’s not fucking interested. Give it up, Dean._

The Monster can − now a crumpled, sharp-edged ball, crunched in Dean’s fist – clattered into the garbage can as the lecture hall door slammed behind him.


	2. Straight As A Circle

“Your order, Miss,” Cas tried to say with a smile around a bone dry throat. It ended up half choked, and the girl, who had previously been twirling her hair and smiling brightly in his direction, drew back and looked weirdly at him. He covered his coughs with a sleeve as she yanked the package of warm croissants from beneath his hand and quickly made for the door.

Cas sagged against the counter and wished once more the boss actually liked him.

He had been late, again, and though the bakery’s owner hadn’t fired his least favorite employee, he’d told Cas that this particular shift would be pretty much break-free to work off all the time he had missed.

But Cas actually needed water, or he quite possibly might die. That was what his throat felt like, anyway.

There were no more customers waiting to be served. He could slip out from behind the counter and just –

“Hey! Castiel!”

_Shit._

“I said no breaks today, I meant no breaks!”

“I need to…water,” Cas coughed, turning to the red-faced man standing in the doorway to the back.

“Five seconds and you are back behind the counter, or you’re actually fired.”

Cas raced for the fountain and arrived back at the counter, panting and wiping water from his face. The boss narrowed his eyes but disappeared back into his office as Cas caught his breath and leaned against the counter.

He dusted his white apron, sending small poofs of white dust into the air, settling all over the counter and floor, before the oven went off again. He sighed. Cupcakes to frost, now, for – what, forty more minutes, until his shift was done?

He pulled on the oven mitt and carefully set the perfectly shaped little cakes on the counter, pulling out the box of frosting tools.

He was frosting the under petals of a blue and purple flower on top of the chocolate cupcake when he glanced up, out through the giant bakery windows displaying cakes and his gaze caught on a familiar leather jacket.

Cas stopped frosting.

Dean sat on the bench, his arms draped across the back, and next to him sat a smirking boy Cas knew. Gabriel Loki, the jokester everyone grudgingly half-loved-half-hated in Cas’s accounting class.

As he watched the pair, frosting hanging from loose fingers, Gabe reached over and pinched Dean’s cheek.

Dean swatted him away, rolling his eyes but with a grin of his own, and Gabe settled onto Dean’s shoulder, pulling out his phone to begin texting as Dean’s arm dropped from the back of the bench to hang around Gabe’s neck.

Cas dropped the frosting and was reminded by an angry growl from the boss’s doorway that he had half a dozen more cupcakes to frost, and busied himself, trying to ignore the sick feeling rising in his stomach.

By the time his shift was over, both Gabe and Dean were gone.

The next job was a just-off-campus coffee shop, but the twenty minutes it took to walk there put Cas ten out-of-breath minutes ahead of schedule to nap in the back. He slept whenever he could snatch a few minutes, but today, curled up against his backpack across two almost-cushy chairs in the tiny employee lounge, his mind hummed too loudly to slip off into a blissful fog of unconsciousness.

“Ooh, Cas, you look awful.”

Cas grimaced at his two coworkers that had turned to appraise him as he emerged from the back, yawning as he tied his apron.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, eyes down, and set to work. Mindless, numbing work that might make him forget for a few hours.

 

“Dean-o, are you even listening? Jesus.”

Gabe was smirking as he waved a hand in front of Dean’s face.

“Hmm? Yeah, I was just…”

“Yeah, _no_. You weren’t listening. I was just talking about what your brother and I got up to last weekend −”

Dean shoved Gabe into the hedge.

When Gabe had retrieved himself from the hedge and caught up to the speed walking Dean, who determinedly ignored his friend to stare at his phone as Gabe poked at his side.

“What’s up, Dean?”

“Believe it or not, I don’t want to hear about my friend turned little brother’s boyfriend and whatever you both get up to when I’m not around,” Dean snorted, eyes cutting between texts from his brand new, ridiculously goody-goody study group to the perilously bumpy sidewalk as they walked.

“Well, yeah, but obviously we’ve got a case of Seriously Distracted Dean today, because otherwise you’d have done more than push me into a bush if you’d actually heard what I said.”

Dean kicked backward, connecting with Gabe’s shin.

“Haha!” Gabe winced triumphantly. “Wait, don’t tell me you got some eye candy in a class you forgot to tell me about!”

“I mean…” Dean muttered, trying to read words that weren’t making sense anymore.

“Holy shit, you do! Who is it?! Do I know them?”

“No,” Dean said shortly.

“C’mon, dude. I know everyone. They all love me.”

“In your dreams,” Dean retorted, laughing incredulously.

“No, my dreams are reserved for your brother. Naked.”

“Jesus Christ.” Dean rounded on him. “I’m gonna kill you.”

“Sam would kill you toooo,” Gabe chuckled, ducking blows Dean rained down on him.

“Pretty sure I could hold my own, asshole.”

“You’re so violent today, Dean-o.” Gabe escaped Dean’s reach. “But it’s still not distracting me from the fact that you haven’t said anything about the eye-candy.”

“Nothing to say,” Dean grumped, glancing at himself in the giant window of the library as they passed by, adjusting his jacket and finally silencing his phone as it buzzed with yet another study group text.

“Aw, did wittle baby Deanie get turned down?”

“Shut up. He just isn’t interested,” Dean mumbled, rubbing the back of his head as he stuck his phone in his pocket.

“Ah, _he_! So we’ve already narrowed down the selection. Is it James?”

“Who the hell is that?”

“What about John? Or Elijah?”

“Are you just saying names? You’re just saying names now.”

“Pierce? Max?”

“No, idiot.”

“So you do know I’ll keep on guessing until I actually get his name, right?”

Dean huffed and stuck his hands in his pockets. “It’s Castiel.”

“Oh shit. Cas Angel?!”

Finally Gabe broke through Dean’s huffy avoidance of his eyes. Dean stopped. “You know him?”

“Yeah, we take a shitty accounting class together. Yeah, Cas. You’re right, he’s got that whole ‘I don’t know how to talk to people please help me’ cute thing going on. But also the ‘secretly hella kinky’ vibe too.”

“Dude,” Dean chided.

“It’s all there. You’re just bad at reading people.”

“I don’t even know, he might be straight.”

Gabe sighed, placing his hand on his friend’s shoulders as he spoke slowly. “Dean-o, Castiel is as straight as a circle.”

“But how do you know? I saw him with whatsherface, Charlie Bradbury, a couple times our last few classes.”

“Okay, whoa. So. First of all. Let us remind ourselves, wonderful friend of mine, that of all people, we should know despite a person possibly being in a straight relationship does not necessarily mean they’re straight, yes?”

Dean nodded. “All right, but…”

“Second of all, and quite possibly most important, Charlie is the hugest flaming lesbian in the entire world. And the entire world knows that. Except, apparently, you. They work together at some nerdy comic book shop. So rest easy, she’s not going to steal your man. Also, this seems to indicate that your gaydar is sub-par, so let’s not resign ourselves to a straight Cas Angel just yet, hmm?” He knocked Dean with his shoulder. “Are we still doing pizza night tonight?”

“You mean ‘try to eat my pizza and ignore you and my brother making out in the corner while we watch shitty comedies night’? Yes.”

“We love ya for it, Dean-o. See ya then.”

Dean nodded an exasperated goodbye to the grinning Gabe as he ducked into his next class.

 

Cas yawned as he finished up his Psychology homework, in the back of the coffee shop.

“Off to sleep, huh?” His coworker patted his shoulder as he passed, now apronless.

“Ha, yeah,” he laughed.

That wasn’t true. He wished it was. He would have loved for it to be true. No, it was time to don a logoed hat, drive his junk car to stranger’s houses and pray for good tips.

 

“Get a Hawaiian, too. But I’m not hungry right now, let’s have them deliver in a couple hours.” Sam leaned in to Gabe’s chest, and Gabe wrapped his arms around him as he confirmed the pizza order on the phone.

Dean sighed and suppressed a gag and Sam twisted to meet Gabe’s lips.

“Hands off my little brother,” he scolded halfheartedly.

Gabe snorted, tossing his phone aside, still kissing Sam.

Moving away from Gabe had sucked, years back, when Dean had met him on one of John Winchester’s many work trips that turned into brief almost-homes. They’d become fast friends, quietly trying to ignore the fact that they both knew their time to be friends was only shrinking, and it was only a matter of time before the Winchesters left.

It wasn’t until a few years later, when they’d settled down again after many, many more almost homes and John had disappeared, leaving only lots and lots of money behind, Dean had connected with his old friend. And Sam, who had been much younger before, had fallen head over heels for Gabe, who seemed anything but adverse.

Dean, who had been scoping for colleges, figured Gabe’s college, fairly local to both of them, would be the best choice. It took good couple hours to go home, so he stayed at a dorm.

But Sam, apparently, planned to visit often. If not entirely for his brother’s sake. As illustrated by the disgusting scene unfolding in from of Dean now.

“Okay, fine. Then let’s start the movie.” Anything to keep the making out at a minimum, if possible. Was it really necessary that Sam should drive so many hours to join their old tradition of movie night in Gabe’s living room?

They were back to Disney again for the night, Aladdin. It had been a while since they’d seen it, and Sam had always loved the movie, but tonight, it seemed like humping Dean’s best friend was more important than A Whole New World.

By the time they’d started their third movie, Tangled, with Sam and Gabe’s hands roaming as they did anything but watch the movie, Dean had had much, much more than enough.

He stood abruptly, unnoticed by the other two, who were quite literally wrapped up in each other, and marched out of the room. It was time for the pizza to arrive, ASAP.

Maybe stuffing pineapple-laden crusts down their throats would force them to remove their tongues.

The doorbell rang, _finally_ , and Dean snatched the wad of cash plus tip off the entry table and yanked open the door.

“Oh, thank God −”

The porch light made the wide electric blue eyes gleam, and the hair under his hat was even messier than before. There was no mistaking him.

“C-Cas,” Dean stuttered out, money hanging forgotten in his hand, and his brother and his best friend making out completely gone from his mind.

“Hi,” Cas breathed after a minute, seemingly as surprised as Dean. “Is this…is this your house?” His eyes darted around.

“Ah, no, it’s Gabe’s.” Dean ran his tongue over dry lips.

“Oh.” Cas’s face fell, for some reason, and he held out the pizzas. “Here, you…”

“Dean? Is it the food?” Sam’s head poked around the doorframe, his hair poking up in all directions, Gabe’s arms around his waist as he rested his chin on Sam’s shoulder.

Cas’s eyes widened, and Gabe’s face lightened in recognition.

“Castiel! Oh shit, it’s sure lucky he’s your pizza man, huh, Dean?”

“ _My_ pizza man?” Dean questioned through gritted teeth.

“Well, yeah. Say, Cassie, are you almost off your shift? It’s pretty late. You want to come in and watch Rapunzel hit Flynn with a frying pan? Me and Sam here have left Dean all by his lonesome and I bet he’d like a…friend.”

Cas stuttered, still holding the pizzas. “Well, I, um…”

Dean sent Gabe a glare that promised death as soon as Cas was gone.

Seeing this, Gabe let go of Sam to stalk forward and grab Cas by the arm. “So it’s settled. You’re watching some Tangled with us. It’s a great movie, I swear, with those great big green eyes, Dean and Punzie could be twins. It’s like watching your best friend save the kingdom onscreen while maintaining a romance with a dashing, dark-haired man.”

“I will actually murder you in your sleep,” Dean muttered as Gabe passed, towing Cas, who looked apprehensive, into the living room.

Sam looked confused, but after Gabe firmly pressed Cas into the center of the couch, plucked the pizza boxes from Cas’s hands and replaced them with Dean’s cash, he went to whisper in the younger Winchester’s ear, and Sam’s expression changed to one of good-natured mischief as he grinned at Dean.

“This has been fun, and all, but Sam will probably have to go home in a few hours, so we’re gonna head to somewhere more private,” Gabe announced as Flynn fenced guards with a frying pan.

Although he believed that Gabe and Sam probably wanted to get up to shenanigans in Gabe’s bedroom, Dean happened to know the rest of this statement was patently untrue. As if he didn’t know Sam was sleeping over, with the way Gabe had been going on and on about it since the visit had been planned while Gabe’s parents were away. Gabe winked at him, and Dean let him silently know how unimpressed he was with the trickstery matchmaker Gabe was trying to play. But Gabe and Sam ignored him, grabbing a few slices of pizza from the coffee table Gabe had placed the boxes on and leaving, hands linked.

Cas was awkwardly sitting, curled in almost a ball, tiny in the center of the over-large, poofy couch Gabe’s family had proudly scored from a garage sale.

Dean sighed, still pissed at Gabe for leaving him in such an awkward situation, and dug his hands into his pockets as he went to sit next to Cas. The cave scene. Great. He couldn’t exactly put on the shameless flirt act anymore, if Cas was so clearly not interested. And without that mask, Dean didn’t know how to act around people he was attracted to.

“Hey, Cas, you can leave, if you’ll get in trouble,” Dean finally said in a low voice.

“No, it’s fine. My boss doesn’t care. I’m almost at the end of my shift anyway,” Cas murmured, his eyes fixed awkwardly on the screen.

“Cool” was all Dean could say, swallowing and forcing his eyes forward.

The couch had seemed wide before, but it felt infinitely smaller. Cas wasn’t perfectly center, actually, his seat a little closer to Dean’s than Dean has realized.

His knee brushed Dean’s hand, and they both jumped a foot as Rapunzel healed Flynn’s hand.

“Sorry,” Cas whispered, yanking his hat lower and retreating, pulling all limbs inward.

Dean’s gaze flicked sideways, catching on the blue eyed boy. Those eyes, too, slowly turned to meet Dean’s.

Dean was barely even aware how far he had begun leaning in while the other boy remained perfectly still when Cas’s phone buzzed. Cas jerked backward, turning away, his phone instantly in his hand. An old flip phone, Dean noted, wondering if now was a bad time to ask for its number.

“I have to go,” Cas muttered, shooting up from the couch and shoving his phone in his pocket. “Now.”

“Are you okay?” Dean rose too, running a hand through his hair.

“Fine. Bye.” Cas’s voice was terse as he brushed by Dean, the door closing with a loud click behind him.

In the silence, Dean collapsed onto the couch, breath hissing out.

He’d screwed up again.

Cas wasn’t into him. Dean would have to face it and apologize on Monday, and try his very best to keep up a purely friendly face.

He’d do it. For Cas’s sake.


	3. Breaking Apart

Except Cas wasn’t in class Monday. Or Wednesday. By the end of the lecture the next Monday, Dean was restless and cranky and determined to get down to the bottom of this.

Determined, he shouldered his backpack and left the busy room, wandering through student-packed halls.

It wasn’t until he caught sight of a bright mane of red hair that he felt a sliver of hope.

Jogging down the hall, he reached Charlie Bradbury just as she leaned in to a small brunette she had standing up against the wall.

“Hey, are you Charlie Bradbury?” Dean began, and felt bad immediately as Charlie pulled back and the brunette looked disappointed. “See you later,” she called as she slipped from between Charlie’s arms.

“I’m 150% gay,” Charlie scowled, turning and folding her arms as she looked Dean up and down. “So don’t bother.”

“No, I heard you work at a comic store with Castiel Angel.”

Charlie’s eyebrows went up and a giant smile spread across her face. “I do indeed.”

“Where exactly is it?”

“And when are his −” she coughed “− ahem, _my_ work hours? C’mon, I’m starting in half an hour. You can tag along, provided you’re not planning on purely loitering.”

“So…have you seen Cas the last few days?” Dean asked as casually as possible as he and Charlie stepped onto the bus and he took hold of the bus pole next to her.

She snickered at him, his attempt to be subtle all too obvious. “Yeah, but he’s been keeping to himself last few shifts, though. Seemed kinda down, I guess.”

Dean rubbed his face, suddenly worried.

“Oh, Jesus. Calm down, dude. Don’t be all over-eager.”

 

The shop wasn’t large, but it was filled to the brim with odds and ends.

But Dean was too distracted when he saw the hunched, messy headed figure take over the counter as Charlie stepped into the back, taking a second to give him a pointed evil eye. Dean scooped up some Iron Man action figure without looking, eyes still glued to the counter as he slowly made his way over. It curiously felt like if Cas noticed him, he’d be gone like some wild animal.

“Hey.”

Cas looked up and swallowed. “Hi.”

His voice was quieter than usual, his hands trembling as he reached for the action figure Dean had deposited on the counter. “Will that be all?”

“I, uh, yeah.”

“Okay.” Cas started ringing it up.

“Why haven’t you been in class?” Dean blurted out.

Cas stopped moving, then jerkily typed into the register. “I might drop out.”

“What? Why?” Dean handed over cash wordlessly, his eyes on Cas, who seemed to refuse to look at him anymore.

“I just can’t,” the blue eyed boy whispered.

“Is it me? Because it’ll never happen again, Cas, I’m sorry, I…”

“No!” Cas finally looked up. “No, it’s not, I…” He looked down at his hands, holding the figurine he’d been about to shove into a bag.

“I’ll…I’ll try,” he finally whispered. “I’ll try to come.”

 

Dean chewed on his lip as he rounded the corner. He couldn’t bring himself to be early, to even be on time, despite the fact that he’d been tossing and turning all night, sleep far off.

He couldn’t handle sitting there and waiting in a half empty classroom, hoping and hoping that a messy dark head would pop around the door, only to be disappointed when the doors closed behind the final student and he hadn’t come. Again.

But even yanking open the door, a minute before class started, his frantic scan of the almost full seats gave him…nothing.

Dean’s stomach dropped to his shoes as he swallowed and hoisted his backpack up higher on his shoulder until the door, closing behind him, was suddenly shoved into his back.

“Ohmygod I’m so sorry I −”

They were face to face as Cas was grabbing at Dean’s arms, flustered, checking for signs of injury, and Dean was grinning ear-to-ear, pain forgotten, and they were both smiling at each other now as Cas still held onto Dean’s shoulders, and students nearby were exchanging looks as the professor eyed them, standing in the front of the room, late and not in their seats, and weird as they were being.

But Dean didn’t care, and neither did Cas, it seemed, as they both slunk to the back of the room, still biting back smiles and faint giggles.

Dean couldn’t keep his eyes on the professor, not when Cas was finally sitting next to him again. Cas seemed to be making a valiant effort to pay attention, but his eyes kept straying, meeting Dean’s as they both grinned at each other again and again, at more than one point setting each other off with a snicker in remembering The Door Incident that hadn’t even been that funny, except it was.

And class was over, finally, and they could talk, and Dean was finally pressing his phone into Cas’s hand, screen open to New Contact, and Cas wasn’t rushing off like usual, and in the back of Dean’s mind he wondered why.

It wasn’t until they got into the cloudy gray light of outside that Dean realize just how worn-out Cas looked, and even more when he stumbled a little and Dean had to catch his elbow.

“You all right?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” Cas mumbled. “But we were talking about…?”

What had they even been talking about?

“I can’t even remember. Whatever,” Dean laughed.

As conversation continued, easy and enthusiastic, they started walking. No one said anything about the destination, and no one cared.

But as it lapsed into comfortable silence, there was something Dean did want to talk about. “Hey, you don’t have anything to do after this? You always rushed out after class, I thought you hated me or something.”

Cas was determinedly looking anywhere but Dean as he answered. “No, I don’t have anything…not right now.”

“So…you did?” Dean persisted, nervously testing, unable to tell what in the world was going on in Cas’s head.

“Yeah, I…” Cas dragged his eyes up from the ground to look at Dean. “They usually let me put in a couple extra hours at the…comic book shop.” His eyes drifted away again at the last words, and Dean could not think of why on earth Cas was lying. Did he see a secret lover or something, something he was so desperately ashamed of that…

“So you decided not to today?”

Cas shrugged, stuffing hands in pockets. “Mmm,” he mumbled noncommittally.

“Dean-o!”

The shout made both of them look up as Gabe jogged to meet them.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he smirked, eyeing Cas, who went pink. “Are you going to be joining us for another movie night?”

“No, I have to work.” Cas scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Don’t overwork yourself, Cassie!” Gabe said cheerfully, and suddenly Cas’s eyes were wide and sharpened on Gabe’s face, and everybody noticed.

Cas, suddenly aware he was the center of attention, allowed his eyes to flick over to Dean briefly, and swallowed visibly. “I have to go,” he said quietly, already peeling away from them, gone without another world.

Gabe hummed. “Well, isn’t that interesting.”

“What _was_ that?” Dean demanded, turning to his best friend.

“That, my friend, is an honor student gone wrong.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Calm down, Dean.” Gabe wasn’t smiling anymore. “Cas is in here on a couple big scholarships.”

“And you know this how, and why…?”

“I have a lot of friends in high places.” Gabe stuck hands in his pockets. “Point is, Castiel Angel’s biggest scholarship that’s quite possibly the only thing allowing him to attend this place? Awarded from the university for ‘Devotion to Studies.’“

Dean huffed impatiently. “And that means…?”

“It’s given to students who keep their grades up, and dedicate their time to volunteer work and crap. The one issue is the catch. Recipients are only allowed to work for monetary gain a certain number of hours per week. Some bullshit about focusing on academic integrity and full attention to studies.”

Dean suddenly felt a tightness in his chest as Gabe turned to stare at him.

“Cassie’s working those full times with the comic book shop, which he registered with the college. He’s pushing the envelope as it is. But there’s no way they’d allow the pizza job, or who knows what else. Cas is breaking rules, big time.”

 

Cas’s head hurt. It was always hurting, now. He could barely keep his eyes open.

The bakery job had fallen through. It felt like every job was, now. The comic book shop, the pizza deliveries − and this coffee shop.

“Excuse me?!” The woman’s voice was grating. She was that suburban soccer mom type, self-righteous and shrill, who hated people like him. He jerked awake.

“Get me another server,” she demanded of a coworker standing behind Cas, mixing a drink. “This one’s falling asleep.”

“I’m sorry ma’am, we’re very busy,” replied the girl, sending a look at Cas. _What are you doing?_

He shook himself. “I’m sorry, ma’am, please, just repeat your order?”

“I said I wanted a goddamn vanilla soy latte.” She huffed at him, narrowing her eyes. “You lazy teenagers, you don’t deserve a job. You don’t appreciate what you have.”

Cas tried not to let the barb sting as he rang her up, but as she got back her change and let her hand hover over the tip jar for a few tantalizing moments before withdrawing and sneering at him, he could feel the lump at the back of his throat tighten.

“I…I feel sick,” Cas mumbled to his coworker as she placed her finished drink on the bar.

“Castiel,” she protested, but he was already running for the bathroom.

It was empty, open for him to lock the door behind him and crouch, catching his head between his knees, against the wall. He did feel sick, a weird, horrible blend of near-vomiting grossness and a terrible dark blanket of wrongness over it all. He couldn’t catch his breath as he sobbed, pressing his fingers deep into his arms, even as he winced because it hurt, so much.

And he couldn’t do this, but what choice did he have, for any of it? His future and his present. He couldn’t drop any of it.

He needed to clear his head. He needed to get out of this suffocating little coffee shop, but he would finish this goddamned shift if it ended him, with a blank, fake smile, and then he would run, and he would go.

 

And he did, and he let himself drive his beat-up, junky car that was always breaking − just like everything else he owned − on autopilot, going where it would, and he was sitting in the campus library’s parking lot, and he was out the door, barely locking it behind him, and running up the steps to the doors, and what work did he have to do now, because he always had to do work. And when had he last slept, actually slept, and not napped, with his alarm’s volume as high as it would go because he couldn’t afford to sleep?

The books were in his arms, selected on autopilot, accounting and calc, and he was stumbling through the psychology isle, and he had to sit down, because his head was spinning, and his face was wet again, his gaze blurry, his nose running, and he was on the ground against the shelf, and wiping at his face, and makeup came away on his fingers, his gaze fading in and out. And why was that there − yes, because he couldn’t go out looking like he had this morning, so he’d stolen his mother’s old concealer and slathered it on. Well, it was gone now, and the jig would be up when he checked out, but he just needed to sit here for a while longer, until his gaze wasn’t fading in and out.

But then he was blacking out, and somebody’s hand was on his arm, shaking him.

“Oh, god, oh god. Castiel?”

Cas cracked open his eyes, still woozy. It was Dean, looking horrified.

“Cas, Cas, please.”

“What time is it?” Cas whispered, his throat rusty.

“Are you okay?! Cas, what’s happened? I’m going to take you to the hospital, okay?” Dean was reaching to lift him to his feet, but Cas couldn’t move.

“No, no hospital. What time is it?” he repeated insistently.

“It’s five.” Dean heaved him up, and Cas nearly fell over again as his vision went dark, but he was scrambling away anyway, grabbing for his phone.

“No, five? I have to get home. Fuck, fuck.”

“Cas,” Dean whispered as Cas caught himself on a bookshelf. “Cas, I find you passed out on the ground and you’ve got a giant black eye. What the fuck is going on?”

Cas looked up at him. “No hospitals,” he muttered as he fell forward.

Dean caught him, but Cas wasn’t conscious to realize it.

**Author's Note:**

> ok like i'm so so bad at finishing stuff (thus all the oneshots on here) but i s2g if i don't manage to finish this i will be so mad at myself i will work so hard to get this fricking fic done no matter how long it takes  
> but i have a bunch written so don't sweat for a while
> 
> EDIT: LOL i'm not finishing it probably so yeah I'm mad at myself but whatever
> 
> PROMPTS/STUFF: (to be added to)  
> First and foremost from khaleesikun.tumblr.com/post/98336180125 my favorite college experience is when i had a 7am class and the kid next to me literally poured a monster energy drink into his coffee said “i’m going to die” and drank the whole thing  
> 


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